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The My Paris Story Paris Tour September 2018

I’m preparing a feast. And you mon soeurs are invited. To sit at the table. It’s with a small group of women. To savour the sweetness of life. In Paris. Are your tempted. You should be. It’s going to be delicious. The Feast will begin Sunday September 2nd. We’ll meet at lunchtime to share food and story and start the journey to deeper noticing. To real life mindfulness. From Paris to pleasure to passion. I’ll have some gorgeous goodies (like my handmade Journals, Personal Paris Prompts, Journey Cards and a surprise My Paris Story gift) for everyone. Later we’ll walk some Paris rues together and finish with a sunset boat ride on the Seine.

After this each day will be devoted to a different sense. To awaken the body and mind. To rekindle womanly wonder. Then we’ll bring it all together on the last day. To take a difference home.

Mostly we’ll meet as a group after breakfast and do some ‘learning’ and sharing. Just enough to inspire and energize you. After that we’ll be out on the street experiencing Paris in various ways. There will be a balance of organised and free time. Sometimes there will be personal Paris challenges that you’ll undertake then we’ll regroup. Share the apero hour. Of course. An essential Paris pleasure.

Here’s a sample day. Day 2. It will be about Scent. We’ll learn how the sense of smell links to memory and use various scents and smelling words to access our forgotten dreams. We’ll talk about my journaling technique of ‘Savouring the Sweet Stuff of Living’. It’s a bit like gratitude only more sensual. We’ll visit the new Grande Perfume Museum and later make our own signature scent at a private workshop. By the end of the day we’ll be smelling like roses. Literally!

Now I’m not going to give absolutely everything away. To save some surprises. But you need to have some idea of the budget. The cost will include 7 nights single accommodations with breakfast at a sweet hotel that I have personally stayed at. Daily cost of access to Museums and workshops. A boat trip on the Seine. A welcome and farewell meal. And your goodies package. Including two ebooks prepared by me to get you ready to go. And for when you come home. It won’t include travel to and from Paris nor travel insurance. I’ll be finalising the details soon but it will be about $4200. That’s Australian currency.

So if you are hungry for something like this let me know. If you are a midlife woman who needs to take time out for deep self care. If you sense your need to nourish your spirit to truly flourish. If you need to focus on yourself without the responsibilities of your everyday life. If you would love the support and company other other women. If you dream of uncovering the real Paris. If you are ready to open your heart to the pleasures of Paris. Then join me for this feast.

This is much more than a tour. It’s an experience that is designed to make a difference in how you experience life. To rekindle your passionate self. And to connect with other midlife women who are a lot like you. Numbers are limited to make it more personal. I’ll be taking deposits after Christmas and sending out the preparatory materials in March. In the meantime I’ll keep you posted. And I’ll be tempting you by sharing something that’s on the menu of each day.

It will be absolutely delicious. And life nourishing. So I hope you’ll give this to yourself. Join in the Feast. Because you are worth it. Because its Time. To Be the Rose.

Making as a deeper way of having

Mr G and I were recently lounging in our bed. Reading. You know those lovely lazy Sunday mornings. When time slows. Then he wistfully lamented. I miss the little boys. Time froze. Yes oh yes me too. In the long moment that followed our empty nest an aching void we held between us.

Later I weep. I’m listening to Patti Smith weep too. As she reads. It’s a piece from her wonderful memoir ‘M Train’. Her prose so lyrically articulates the particular sting of this pain.

‘We want things we cannot have. We seek to reclaim a certain moment, sound, sensation. I want to hear my mother’s voice. I want to see my children as children. Hands small, feet swift. Everything changes. Boy grown, father dead, daughter taller than me, weeping from a bad dream. Please stay forever I say to the things that I know. Don’t go. Don’t grow.’

In those moments I think. Yes. We should have frozen our little boys. Somehow. So they could stay forever. Always eight and six. Caught those golden curls and the sweet cherub mouths. The agile limbs and giggling delight as they tumble ahead along the sandy path over the dunes down to Tallow Beach. This particular image is forever etched deeply inside me. Sunny and shining. Like a faded colour Polaroid.

Perhaps if I had thought to call out. No don’t grow. Don’t go. Please stay forever. And don’t decay. Don’t age. Or shrivel. Or break in any way. And never ever melt away.

Follow the idea up that cobblestone rue for true enchantment

Real Paris is a real feast. And Petrelle is where you’ll find it. Make sure you go. A full-on true sensory celebration of food and life. It’s a lesson in how to live. As you eat.

Picnic is a lifestyle choice. Keep it simple. A green square surrounded by the Seine. Bread and jambon and wine. A white peach. Square du Vert-Galant. Hopefully someone is playing music across the way on the day.

A basket full of Yogurt. From Monoprix. One tub won’t be enough. Be warned. Even chain store yogurt is seriously good here. Incidentally so is the cashmere.

It's a Wabi Sabi sort of thing

There’s a heartbroken human in our home at the moment. So my heart hurts a little as well. I see the pain in the posture. Feel the sadness behind the gentle grin. When there is weeping I think of Glenn Close in The Big Chill. Naked and weeping on the floor in the shower. I remember when I too wept in the shower. Because we are all at some point in our life heartbroken humans.

Where the nice and the naughty collide

Sometimes a woman wants to be the mistress not the wife. I know you know what I mean. And these qualities are not cultivated in those tasteful stiff sort of places overlooking grand monuments. No something a bit edgier dare I even say seedy is needed. To reawaken this inner goddess. So what better location than the former playground of the likes of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pablo Picasso and Josephine Baker. The ninth arrondissement. Where striptease was invented. Et du famous quartier de Pigalle. The almost former red-light district whose old hostess bars and massage parlours are being replaced by artisanal cocktail bars, vintage everything shops and edgy boutiques. The “pipole” are now hanging out around here. That’s French slang for hip beautiful or famous. C’est parfait.

The heart is the final frontier

I’m not sure when it was exactly but somewhere along the way I realised I’d married the wrong man. It may have been in that time between the wedding and the having of kids. Anyhow at some point I knew for sure he wasn’t the prince I’d been conditioned to expect. Or a knight. There was no shining armour or even a white horse. No hidden fortune to be bestowed. He was’t going to rescue me. Give me answers. Complete me. Nor was there a get out of the childhood damage and live happily ever after card tucked in his back pocket.

About a real room with a view in Paris

Once upon a time I wrote a short story. It’s about a midlife woman who found her heart on the lounge room floor. Neglected and hidden amongst a pile of art books. She hadn’t even realised it had gone missing. Her first impulse was to hide the thing. So she wrapped her heart carefully and put it under her bed. This was where she kept those special private things.

However on some days when she was alone she started spending time with her heart. Maybe doing art making or sewing. Sometimes just sitting with it. Later she started taking her heart out on daily walks. It was on one of these walks that she realised she needed to get away. By herself. Well not exactly by herself. It was to be with her heart.

Of course it’s about me. And mon cher couer. My dear heart. This was the beginning of My Paris Story. And after that all sorts of things started happening. And changing. Still are. It’s actually a little bit magical.

La joie de Vivre

Here is a Paris Story. A real one. The one that tells the truth. It starts in a moment when you are out of sorts. Disgruntled. Uncomfortable. Disappointed. It’s a story of the wrong weather, aching feet, annoying crowds and too many monuments to be seen too quickly. You remember it exactly because it’s the very moment when you tumbled out of fantasy Paris and into a real city.

It was just after the waiter was terribly brisk and cigarette smoke was definitely violating your right to clean air. You realised the real reason to have learnt some French is to curse and swear effectively. Like you wish you could right now.

You have a mild headache because it seems a decent coffee can’t be had for any amount of money. Whats more the cute little poodle has just pooped on the path and Madame isn’t one bit bothered. Not like you are. There’s way too much pooping and rubbish lying about for a fantasy city. And that smell of urine in the metro earlier is still stinging your nostrils.

About a woman learning to love herself

The first time I saw ‘Muriel’s Wedding’ I didn’t like it. Not like I do now. It was because it was too close to home. Painfully close. I felt like the director was making fun of Muriel. And therefore of me. Well I didn’t think that as clearly I write it now. I had distanced myself from her nervous mannerisms and naive expressions. I didn’t want to have a terrible dysfunctional family. To be that provincial. I experienced an uncomfortable mixture of embarrassment and pity watching her. Even as others laughed along and loved her.

I couldn’t actually bear to think I was Muriel. With her weight issues, low self-esteem and appallingly limited ambitions to be a bride. Later in the film I cringed at the sight of her in that white satineen jumpsuit. Dancing so delightedly to Waterloo. She was way too fat to be wearing that. I thought I was ashamed for her. But it was for myself.

How to be the Rose and other lessons

The Eight Arrondissement is the luxury end of Paris. Some say its boring and empty. To avoid it because only the truly wealthy and la terrible tourists are to be encountered here.

It’s true that it’s very grand. That there are those swanky hotels like Four seasons Hotel St Georges, Hotel de Crillon and Hotel Plaza Athenee. That most of us will only ever fantasize about staying in such places. That the so-called Golden Triangle of Avenues with the high-end designer stores the ilk of Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Chanel cross it. That the Champs Elysees the most famous avenue in the world is now overrun with tourists taking selfies against a backdrop of chain stores and the Arc de Triumph. But to focus on that would be to miss out on an essential part of the Paris story.

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About Me

Once upon a time, not so long ago, I went to Paris. It was a great big generous gift to myself. Because I wanted it to last I wrote some things down, and I made some little watercolours. And because in my everyday normal life I work as a doctor in mental health I used mindfulness on myself. Guess what.... it's great stuff. I found out that when you go away, its not just about what to see or to have or to know but how you do these things. That the real journey is from your head to your heart and your feet and hands and all your senses get involved along the way! And its all good for you. I realised I'd found a way to go though the muddle of midlife from a sort of madness to a more magical place. And along the way I fell in love with the place they call Paris.
I wanted to tell other women all about it, so I made this blog. Now this is my gift to you. I truly hope you will be inspired to make your own Paris Story come true.